Lonely Shore: MM Space Opera Second Chance Romance (Chaos Station Book 2) by Jenn Burke & Kelly Jensen

Author:Jenn Burke & Kelly Jensen [Burke, Jenn & Jensen, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ghost Ship Books
Published: 2024-07-23T00:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

After fighting a war for eight years, Zed had thought he’d known the depths of exhaustion. It had become second nature to him to function on an hour of sleep, two hours, however many winks he could grab between missions. And then he’d signed up for Project Dreamweaver. The exhaustion he’d felt up to then didn’t even compare to the bone-deep fatigue he experienced during the experiments and training.

The past few days had introduced him to a whole new level of tired. Not physical—between the ashies’ neural inhibitor and Nessa’s pain meds, he hadn’t slept so well, so soundly, since before the war began. No, his fatigue was all mental, and the gap between his body and mind was growing larger every day. Every hour.

He didn’t need Rhyniche’s unofficial countdown to know he was going to break soon. He could feel it. Fuck, he almost prayed for it. He was at the point that if this ashie treatment didn’t work…

Don’t go there.

His exhausted brain listened to him, thoughts skittering away like cockroaches from a light source. He lay back on the bed and watched Flick at the window-wall. Rhyniche and its crew would be ready to conduct the treatment…soon. Zed had no idea when. Time had ceased to have any meaning.

He wanted to care what the outcome would be, he really did. But he was so fucking tired.

“C’mere,” he said, his voice soft.

Flick looked at him, but stayed at the window.

“Please.”

With a sigh, Flick left the window-wall and walked over to the bed. He stood there, staring down at Zed. Between the ashie light and Zed’s own fucked-up vision, his eyes looked hazel—their true color. It struck him that he was actually seeing Flick’s eyes as they’d been so long ago, the first two times he’d said goodbye. His cropped blond hair had settled somewhere between purple and gray in the weird spectrum of Ashie Prime. Shadows grasped at the lines of Flick’s face, making the ridges sharper, his scars more prominent.

It was still a face he loved.

He hadn’t decided if saying that to Flick now would be a gift or a curse. As always, his timing fucking sucked. They’d never got it right, first cluing in that they could be more than friends the night before being separated for years, then choosing to make a go of it only a few months before the war with the stin broke out. And now this.

Flick settled onto the bed and Zed leaned into him, hoping that the Zone would leave him be for enough time to talk to Flick. He might not be able to mark time’s passage anymore, but he knew he didn’t have much left.

He rubbed Flick’s arm, feeling the tension that seemed to never leave his lithe frame these days. Flick’s muscles felt like steel cords, tight and unyielding. Zed bit back the apology and shoved down the guilt—they’d been there and done that, and it didn’t help either of them.

“I’ve got some stuff I want to say while I can,” he started.

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